Wednesday, July 25, 2012

It's not just President Obama's infamous "You didn't build that" speech that reveals his hostility to entrepreneurship and old-fashioned American initiative. This chart from National Review Online illustrates just how much of a drag chain this Administration is on businesses, large and small - and on us, the consumers and taxpayers:

With devastating clarity, it illustrates the miles and miles of red tape that bind the hands of entrepreneurs and CEOs like those of hijacked jet passengers. Regulation is a major and mounting cost that consumes scare resources — namely growth capital, management time, and basic patience….

There has now been a 52 percent increase in major regulations or red tape in [Obama's] administration and more regulations on the books than in any time in the history of America.

These regulations are the tentacles that the Administration is using to strangle the economy, push through Agenda 21 policies, wage the "War on Coal," etc., all of which will hit you in the pocketbook. Get ready for your utility bills to skyrocket. And stay tuned for more local action alerts to fight the "War on Coal" in Ohio.

Saturday, July 21, 2012

Yet another UN Treaty to oppose. This from Breitbart's Big Government [emphasis added]:

It's widely known that the U.N. Arms Trade Treaty (ATT), being negotiated as I type, is simply gun control by another name. Although it is being sold as a treaty to lessen the number of guns moving across borders illegally, it will ultimately require a national gun registry to be enforceable: perhaps even an international gun registry.

. . . all of us should be contacting our Senators to demand they refuse to ratify this ridiculous treaty when it comes before them . . .

The Arms Trade Treaty is expected to be finalized this month to create "common international standards for the import, export, and transfer of conventional arms," including tanks, helicopters and missiles. However, with regular calls to include civilian arms and ammunition within its scope, I am concerned this treaty could restrict the ownership of firearms that Americans use to hunt, target shoot, and defend themselves. Our opposition is strong enough to block the treaty from Senate passage.

It's another reason to call Sen. Portman to ask where he stands on the U.N. Arms Trade Treaty and the Disability Treaty previously bloggedhere .

Friday, July 20, 2012

It sounds compassionate, it sounds like good-deed doing, but it is another attempt to cede individual choice, and state and federal sovereignty to the UN: read global government. From The Hill late yesterday [emphasis added]:

Sen. Jim DeMint (R-S.C.) is delaying Senate consideration of the United Nations treaty on people with disabilities amid growing opposition from home-schooling advocates.

The Senate Foreign Relations Committee was scheduled to take up the U.N. Convention on the Rights of People With Disabilities on Thursday, with the goal of getting it passed in time for the 22nd anniversary of the Americans With Disabilities Act (ADA) on July 26. Instead, Chairman John Kerry (D-Mass.) announced that he will hold the markup next Thursday, July 26.

A spokesman for DeMint said several Republicans on the committee joined him in asking for the delay.

"Part of this treaty deals with abortion and the rights of children, issues that should be addressed by states, local governments and American parents, not international bureaucrats," DeMint spokesman Wesley Denton told The Hill in an email. "Sen. DeMint strongly opposes this treaty, as the United States is already the world leader in addressing the needs of the disabled and it’s foolish to think Americans need to sign away our sovereignty to exert our influence around the world." . . .

. . . “The [U.N. treaty] would usurp the rights and powers of parents here in the United States to do what is best for their special-needs child by placing the law of the U.N. above the rights of the parents,” Rick and Karen Santorum said in a statement. “It is the job of our elected representatives to preserve these rights, not hand them off to unaccountable international bureaucrats."

Sen. McCain and Sen. John Barrasso are supporting ratification. Where does Sen. Rob Portman stand? He finally came out in opposition to the Law of The Sea Treaty (LOST). He should come out against this one, too.

Tuesday, July 17, 2012

Patriots - congratulations! You just helped stop the oceans from being owned by the United Nations!

While some groups in Ohio are more concerned about getting a 'seat at the table' and the subsequent pat on the head for being good little GOP 'tools' and not messing up the place settings, some of you and the true grassroots Tea party groups are out there doing the hard work and kicking the table to get things done.

Because of your repeated phone calls, emails and faxesover the last two months to the office of Senator Portman (R-OH) voicing your opposition to the United Nations Law of the Sea Treaty (LOST), Senator Portman and Senator Kelly Ayotte (R-NH) have notified Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid they will be joining the 32 other Senators in opposition to LOST, which would effectively give ownership of the oceans to the United Nations.

We want to thank Senator Portman for coming out against LOST! Please contact one of Senator Portman's offices to extend a thank you to Senator Portman and his ever pleasant and always helpful staff.

Washington, D.C. – U.S. Senators Rob Portman (R-Ohio), ranking member on the Emerging Threats and Capabilities Subcommittee, and Kelly Ayotte (R-NH), ranking member of the Subcommittee on Readiness and Management Support,sent a letter today to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reidin which they announced their opposition to Senate ratification of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea.

Citing significant concerns about the breadth and ambiguity of the treaty, and more importantly, the risks to U.S. sovereignty due to issues regarding enforcement and adjudication, the two members of the Senate Armed Services Committee stated, “After careful consideration, we have concluded that on balance this treaty is not in the national interest of the United States. As a result, we would oppose the treaty if it were called up for a vote.”

Portman and Ayotte continued, “We simply are not persuaded that decisions by the International Seabed Authority and international tribunals empowered by this treaty will be more favorable to U.S. interests than bilateral negotiations, voluntary arbitration, and other traditional means of resolving maritime issues. No international organization owns the seas, and we are confident that our country will continue to protect its navigational freedom, valid territorial claims, and other maritime rights.”

Please scroll down to the phone details for Portman. Take a moment to give him a call to thank him! He needs to know that Ohio Tea Party Patriots are watching closely.

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This from Marianne at the Mansfield Tea Party:

Senator Portman Yet to Sign the Letter Opposing the Law of the Sea Treaty (LOST)!

Two more Republican Senators have signed the letter opposing LOST bringing the total to 30 (four votes shy of being doomed), but Senator Portman is not one of them.

This treaty, as well as all others with the UN, must be defeated! The push for a one world globalist government must be stopped!

Take Action!

Contact Senator Portman and ask him why he refuses to sign the letter opposing LOST. And while you're at it, ask him why he also did not join the other 12 Senators in signing the letter asking governors to oppose the creation of state health care exchanges, which are a method of implementing Obamatax (Obamacare).

The Law of The Sea Treaty, Agenda 21, “green” jobs based on “man-made global warming” junk science and propaganda – these are all components in the Progressive agenda. The alternative media is doing the job that the MSM refuses to do – investigate and report the truth. Case in point: In the wake of the Freeh Report, detailing the pervasive corruption of Penn State to cover up serial sexual abuse of minors, OpenMarket.org revisits another recent Penn State scandal: Michael Mann’s collusion with Phil Jones on the Anthropogenic Global Warming deceptions. Fraud after fraud: the phony-baloney hockey stick graph, manipulation of data, the Climate-gate e-mails, and the dishonest effort to prevent dissenting views from being published in leading peer-reviewed journals. From the report:

Michael Mann, like Joe Paterno (and to a lesser degree, Jerry Sandusky) was a rock star in the context of Penn State University, bringing in millions in research funding. The same university president who resigned in the wake of the Sandusky scandal was also the president when Mann was being

whitewashed investigated. We saw what the university administration was willing to do to cover up heinous crimes, and even let them continue, rather than expose them. Should we suppose, in light of what we now know, they would do any less to hide academic and scientific misconduct, with so much at stake?

Sunday, July 8, 2012

In yet another kick to conservatives from the GOP hypocrites in D.C., and confirming beyond all reasonable doubt John Boehner has failed as Speaker, the once highly touted GOP "Pledge to America" was nothing more than empty promises....

John Hayward of Human Events has the best opener: “On Friday, the House and Senate passed an omnibus spending bill, which is a bit like passing a kidney stone, except it’s much more painful and expensive.”

You may have missed it. While America (especially conservative America) was enraged and taking aimen masse for John Roberts, Congress (especially conservatives in Congress) stuck it to us even harder.

Hayward explains, “This particular bill included a number of measures to address three entirely different topics: student loan rates, highway construction, and flood insurance.”

In the 2010 GOP Pledge to America, they promised the following: “We will end the practice of packaging unpopular bills with “must-pass” legislation to circumvent the will of the American people. Instead, we will advance major legislation one issue at a time.”

The idea that we are going to package a major 27-month transportation bill with a 5-year flood insurance extension and a one year extension of subsidized student loans under the guise of “must pass – or else,” is an anathema to the pledge.

Yet this is exactly what Congress did, as the Human Events piece makes clear:

Those three subjects have nothing to do with each other, but packaging them together made it far more difficult to vote against any specific portion of it. Oppose the extension of those famous subsidized student loan rates, and you’re against highway construction. Express reservations against all that highway spending, and you’re against low-interest student loans and flood insurance.

Political pressures had been cooked up to make each of those individual votes difficult; load them into the same omnibus, and the resulting legislative vehicle is nearly unstoppable. In the end, only 52 Republican members of the House, and 19 Republican senators, voted against it. Big Government got bigger, and Broke Government went further into debt.

Billions of dollars were poured into one of the murkiest cash pits of the federal government, the highway trust fund.

Billions which will probably be wasted or otherwise misappropriated:

The Government Accountability Office figures that a good 38 percent of this money is used for purposes other than highway and bridge construction. Swarms of lobbyists feed from the highway trust fund like remora attached to a great white shark.

Red State is rightly angry, not just over that one aspect of the GOP’s “Pledge,” but in regard to general conservative hypocrisy:

Just 52 Republicans [Ron Paul among them], 21% of the conference, voted against this budget buster, which violated several tenets of the GOP Pledge to America. Only 19 Republicans in the Senate voted no.

This means that 190 Republicans in the House and 38 in the Senate voted Yes—to increase federal power, spending, and debt. Here they are (click the links, Republicans are in italics):

House Votes.Senate Votes.
I say find your Representatives in the list, and if they voted “yes” in violation of their Pledge, then vote them out next term, or at least refuse to support them. Find a principled TEA party conservative to replace them if at all possible.

Not included in the above story, but also included in the Highway Bill was a big government, anti-free market & job-killing amendment that is forcing many Mom & Pop shops out of business.

Putting over 5000 people out of work in Ohio alone, as a favor to the Tobacco Lobby, Congress ruled that the Roll Your Own Tobacco Shops that have popped up across the country should be considered manufacturers.

Like the individuals above, Senator Sherrod Brown (D-OH) also supported the Highway bill.

But once again showing he is one of the ONLY Congressman from Ohio worthy of having his name even mentioned in the same sentence as the Tea Party movement, Rep. Jim Jordan, stood true to his conservative convictions, his promise to you and his Pledge to America. Senator Portman, surprisingly stood with the conservatives in the Senate and also voted against this bill.

Thank you Rep. Chabot, Rep. Jordan and Senator Portman for doing the right thing and voting against the Highway bill!

Friday, July 6, 2012

The Obama administration’s EPA regulations (read: strangulations) will essentially destroy the coal industry, and that will hit YOU in the pocketbook. Just six weeks ago came this bad news [emphasis added]:

One of the country’s largest regional power grid operators, PJM Interconnection, today announced the results of its annual auction that locks in electricity capacity prices three years in advance. Today’s auction established capacity prices for 2015-2016, the first year electric generators will be required to comply with EPA’s costly Utility MACT rule. The results of the auction confirmed the predictions of Republican lawmakers who warned that EPA’s new power rules would drive up electricity costs for American consumers.

The auction set capacity prices at $136 per megawatt (MW) across the PJM footprint, which includes the Mid-Atlantic region and parts of the Midwest. This price is 8 times higher than the $16 per MW price that was set for 2012-2013. Electricity customers in parts of Ohio will be hit the hardest, with the auction setting the price for capacity resources in northern Ohio at $357 per MW, nearly triple the 2014-2015 price set last year. As explained by PJM, the “auction was impacted by an unprecedented amount of planned generation retirements (more than 14,000 MW) driven largely by environmental regulations, which drove prices higher than last year’s auction.”

President Obama’s EPA has issued and proposed a suite of costly new rules on America’s power sector that have already resulted in the premature closure of power plants across the country. Today’s auction shows how these plant closures will affect how much American families and businesses pay for electricity.

“The PJM auction forecasts a dim future where Americans will be paying more to keep the lights on. We are seeing more and more coal plants fall victim to EPA’s destructive regulatory agenda, and as a result, we are seeing more job losses and higher electricity prices,” said Energy and Power Subcommittee Chairman Ed Whitfield (R-KY). “The Obama administration continues to wage a war on affordable energy, and it is the American people who will suffer the consequences.”

Ever since the Supreme Court ruled on Obamacare, most of us have been strategizing on how to ensure that Congress repeals the bill and any related bills and regulations. But there’s another impediment that guarantees another type of trainwreck with the (un)Affordable Healthcare Act: that is, the implementation of the bazillions of regulations, taxes, and provisions -- a computer programmer’s nightmare. Think the Y2K panic in 1999 but much much worse. From Standing Pat :

Obamacare faces significant hurdles in implementation. Healthcare is complex, and made much more complex by state and federal regulations. It is administered using massive computer systems, some of them decades old. These systems are difficult to change and modify, yet they will all require modifications to comply with the raft of new regulations introduced by Obamacare. Private organizations face the added burden of making these changes while complying with SOX [Sarbanes–Oxley Act of 2002] procedures. It is no exaggeration to say that SOX doubles development time and doubles the staff needed to do development. SOX makes it very difficult to use modern rapid development methodologies and forces organizations to use older methodologies that are long on paperwork and short on results. . . .

If state health care exchanges survive the Supreme Court challenge to health care reform, the election and state tea party activists, health policy experts are worried they could still be brought down by a much more mundane problem: information technology.

Even states that are solidly committed to pursuing an exchange are facing major logistical challenges in building the computer systems that will be able to handle enrollment when exchanges open for business in 2014.

That’s largely because the system that will actually connect people to the right coverage will have to “talk” to many other systems, and the systems don’t use a common language. This includes a yet-to-be built federal “data hub” with tax and citizenship info, the enrollment systems of multiple private insurers selling exchange plans and — hardest of all — state Medicaid enrollment systems, many of which are not yet fully computerized.

[back to Standing Pat]: Anyone who has observed the Government’s sorry record on implementing complex IT systems on time and within budget just know that this is a disaster waiting to happen.

The federal government's healthcare power-grab can only make things worse. Another reason to demand that Congress repeal it.

The Health and Human Services Department "was given a billion dollars implementation money," Republican Rep. Denny Rehberg of Montana said. "That money is gone already on additional bureaucrats and IT programs, computerization for the implementation."

"Oh boy," Stan Dorn of the Urban Institute said. "HHS has a huge amount of work to do and the states do, too. There will be new health insurance marketplaces in every state in the country, places you can go online, compare health plans."

The IRS, Health and Human Services and many other agencies will now write thousands of pages of regulations -- an effort well under way: